Baking, a Love Story

Category Archives: Halloween

I am a bit of a Halloween addict I am afraid and when perusing my own blog, I realized just how many recipes I have posted for Halloween inspired food. So here is the parade…and an easy spot to find all the fun and scary food you are looking for…

I am a bit of a Halloween addict I am afraid and when perusing my own blog, I realized just how many recipes I have posted for Halloween inspired food. So here is the parade…and an easy spot to find all the fun and scary food you are looking for…

I am a bit of a Halloween addict I am afraid and when perusing my own blog, I realized just how many recipes I have posted for Halloween inspired food. So here is the parade…and an easy spot to find all the fun and scary food you are looking for…

This Heirloom Tomato soup is honestly the best soup I have ever eaten. I kicked your average tomato soup up a notch by adding Heirlooms to the Hothouse Tomato bunch and ended up with an addicting soup that has already got me planning my next batch of it.

Soup that you dream about all the next day, knowing it’s in your fridge and just waiting to be dunked into by a rustic grilled cheese sandwich.

For the Soup: Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed stock pot over medium-low heat. Add the onions and carrots and saute for about 10 minutes until very tender. You want the onions to be carmelized. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, sugar, tomato paste, basil, stock, salt, and pepper and stir well. Bring the soup to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer, uncovered, for 30 to 40 minutes, until the tomatoes begin to break down and are very soft.

Add the half and half to the soup, stir and process the soup through a food mill into a bowl, discarding only the dry pulp that’s left. Or if you don’t have a food mill, roll up your sleeves for the following steps: Send it through a blender in small batches. LEAVE THE LITTLE CIRCLE IN THE TOP of your lid open or off and PLACE A CLEAN TOWEL OVER THE HOLE or you will get burned. I have an immersion blender and I just pureed the soup with that. Then push your soup through a large sieve or strainer. This took me a while, like 15 solid minutes of forcing the soup through the strainer but it was SO worth it. Really.

Reheat the soup over low heat just until hot and serve with any of the suggested toppings and a grilled cheese sandwich…cut in tooth shapes if you want it for a Halloween themed dish. Enjoy…I know you will!

The Halloween party has begun early over here with these Red Velvet vampire cupcakes. This recipe honestly will rock your world and will beat out any other Red Velvet recipe in any throwdown, showdown or bake-off. Trust me. And with the new McCormick black and their red food coloring, it was easy to make an everyday Red Velvet cupcake into a blood-sucking vampire.